It is high time the South African National Defence Forces' (SANDF) holed up in a UN base camp in DR Congo's North Kivu Province returned home since they have no business in AFC/M23 rebel-held territory. Rebel spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka stressed this, on Tuesday, February 18, during an interview with The New Times in Bukavu, the capital of DR Congo's South Kivu Province, which the rebels captured last weekend.
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SANDF deployed to eastern DR Congo, under a controversial mission (SAMIDRC), to shore up a Congolese army coalition that initially, at full strength, had European mercenaries, Rwandan genocidaires known as FDLR, thousands of Burundian forces, and a local militia group known as Wazalendo, in the war against the M23 rebels. FDLR is a DR Congo-based terrorist militia founded by remnants of the masterminds of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
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Welcomed into eastern DR Congo, then Zaïre, in July 1994, soon after the collapse of the genocidal regime in Rwanda, the genocidaires stayed put, re-arming and re-organising to attack Rwanda again but all their attempts have always been thwarted. Nonetheless, they continue to spread a genocide ideology that is the root cause of the instability in the region and beyond.
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'We asked them to go back home'
Asked about the fate of the SANDF troops now holed up in a MONSCO base in Goma and another in Sake, Kanyuka said: "The African brothers who are living in the MONUSCO camp, the south Africans, we asked them to go back home. It has been said, so many times, that we are free to give them the corridor for them to go. The airport is, at the moment, impractical for them to use. There are so many booby traps in the airport. The tarmac itself is full of holes made by the bombs.
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"We told them that they can still go through Rwanda and return to their own country. So, we have no problem. We told them that even when they are living inside a MONUSCO site, it is about time for them to go home."
Asked about the SANDF troops' response, Kanyuka said: "We are still waiting on them. They don't have no choice, but to tell them that it is the time to go home."
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Early this month, Kigali announced that it had been discovered that the alliance of foreign forces deployed to eastern DR Congo, including SAMIDRC, and FDLR, had combat objectives not limited to defeating M23 but also attacking Rwanda. A statement by the ministry of foreign affairs read: "The argument that SAMIDRC was invited by the Government of the DRC is rendered void by the fact that they are there to fight the citizens of that country, and effectively bring war to Rwanda.
According to the statement, recent information coming from Goma on what was discovered, "and the documentary evidence of attack preparations, planned together with the foreign forces fighting" in eastern DR Congo, "indicate that combat objectives were not limited to defeating M23, but also attacking Rwanda."
